Most tourists who visit Mostar have a vague sense that "there was a war in Bosnia." Some know the name Sarajevo. Fewer know that Mostar had its own war — in fact, two separate conflicts within the broader Bosnian War — and that those conflicts left marks that are visible everywhere in the city, if you know where to look.
A Note on This Page
This page describes historical events in a way that tries to be factually accurate and contextually fair. The Bosnian War is a subject where political framing still matters deeply to many people. We are not trying to assign blame to an entire people — but we are going to tell you what happened, because not telling you is its own form of dishonesty.
Yugoslavia: What Was It, and Why Did It Break?
Yugoslavia — meaning "Land of the South Slavs" — was a federal state that existed from 1918 to 1991, in various political forms. After World War II, it was reconstituted under communist leader Josip Broz Tito as the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, comprising six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia.
Tito's Yugoslavia was a genuine attempt to hold together a diverse, historically fractured region under the banner of "Brotherhood and Unity." It worked, imperfectly but notably, for several decades. Mixed marriages between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims were common. In the 1981 Yugoslav census, a significant number of Bosnians identified simply as "Yugoslav" — an identity beyond ethnic lines.
Tito died in 1980. The rotating presidency that followed him failed to maintain cohesion. Economic decline, rising nationalism — particularly Serbian nationalism under Slobodan Milošević — and the broader collapse of communist systems across Eastern Europe in 1989 created the conditions for dissolution.
In 1991, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence. Federal Yugoslav (effectively Serbian-controlled) forces attempted to hold the country together by force. Slovenia escaped quickly. Croatia's war lasted longer and was more destructive. Bosnia was next.
The First Siege of Mostar: Serbia (1992)
In March 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence following a referendum boycotted by Bosnian Serbs. On April 6, the European Community recognised Bosnian independence. The same day, the siege of Sarajevo began. And shortly after, JNA (Yugoslav People's Army) and VRS (Army of Republika Srpska) forces turned their attention to Herzegovina.
Mostar was besieged from April to June 1992. Serbian forces shelled the city from the surrounding mountains. The goal was to prevent Bosnia's independence from taking hold in this strategically important city on the Neretva. In this phase, Bosniak and Croat forces fought together against the Serbian siege. They succeeded in driving the JNA out of Mostar by June 1992.
The city suffered significant damage in this first siege. But it also emerged from it with a sense of joint Bosniak-Croat solidarity that would, tragically, not last.
The Second Siege: The Croat-Bosniak War (1993–1994)
In 1993, the alliance between Bosniak and Croat forces in Herzegovina collapsed. The reasons were complex — political, territorial, and driven by outside pressure (particularly from Croatia's leadership under Franjo Tudjman, who had designs on Herzegovinian territory as part of a "Greater Croatia"). Croatian nationalist forces (HVO) turned on the ARBiH (Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina).
In Mostar, this second conflict was catastrophic. The city was split in half along the Bulevar — the main boulevard that runs north-south through the city, roughly following the west side of the old town. West Mostar was controlled by Croatian forces. East Mostar — including the old town, the Bosniak-majority area — was besieged.
The siege of East Mostar lasted from May 1993 to February 1994. The civilian population — tens of thousands of people — was trapped without adequate food, water, medical supplies, or escape routes. International aid was severely restricted. Deaths from shelling, sniper fire, and deprivation accumulated.
Walking the Frontline Today
The Bulevar is a main road today. You can walk it. If you look carefully at the building facades — particularly on the east side — you'll see bullet holes, patched plaster, and the occasional shell scar that was never fully repaired. These are not dramatic ruins. They're quiet evidence, embedded in an ordinary streetscape.
Cultural Erasure: The Minarets
During the second siege, Croatian forces systematically targeted mosques and minarets in the areas they controlled. The Koski Mehmed Pasha Mosque (on the river near the old bridge) was damaged. Others were destroyed more completely. This was not random shelling. Targeting religious and cultural monuments that define a community's identity was, and is, a war crime.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) later convicted specific HVO commanders for war crimes committed in Mostar and the surrounding region.
November 9, 1993: The Bridge
On this date — the same date, by coincidence or design, as the fall of the Berlin Wall four years earlier — Croatian artillery positioned in the hills above Mostar fired 60 rounds at Stari Most. The 427-year-old bridge, which had stood through plagues, Ottoman succession crises, two World Wars, and the first siege of Mostar, fell into the Neretva River.
The military justification offered was that the bridge was a supply route for Bosniak forces. Critics, historians, and international courts noted that the bridge had no significant military value — and that the volume and precision of fire far exceeded what would be needed to disable a bridge. The destruction was deliberate. The symbolism was intended.
To destroy Stari Most was to attack the idea that East and West Mostar had ever been connected — to rewrite the city's identity in stone and rubble.
"You can see the Old Bridge from across the mountains. And when it fell, we didn't just lose a bridge. We lost the thing that made us Mostari."
— Mostar resident, interviewed 2001
The Washington Agreement: February 1994
International pressure — particularly from the United States — pushed the warring Croatian and Bosniak forces toward a ceasefire. The Washington Agreement of March 1994 formally ended the Croat-Bosniak war and established the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The broader Bosnian War — particularly the ongoing Serbian siege of Sarajevo and the genocide at Srebrenica in July 1995 — continued until the Dayton Agreement of November 1995, which formally ended all fighting in Bosnia and established the current political structure.
What the Dayton Agreement Created
The Dayton Agreement ended the war. It also froze many of the tensions that caused it, embedding ethnic division into the country's constitutional structure. Bosnia was divided into two "entities" — the Federation (Bosniak and Croat) and Republika Srpska (predominantly Serb). The agreement was designed to stop the killing. It was not designed to create a functional long-term state.
In Mostar specifically, the Dayton framework created an unusual arrangement. The city technically operates as a single municipality but in practice functions with deeply parallel structures. For years after the war, separate Croatian and Bosniak phone networks operated in the same city. Banks, health services, and education were effectively duplicated.
The school system is perhaps the most striking example. Some schools in Mostar operate with two separate administrations in the same building — one Croat, one Bosniak — using different curricula, textbooks, and even separate entrances. Children from different communities who share a school building may never share a classroom. This system — locally known as "two schools under one roof" — continues today.
The Walk From the Boulevard to the Bridge
On our War History Tour, we walk from the Boulevard — the old frontline — across to the bridge. It is approximately 500 metres. In 1993, crossing those 500 metres was the most dangerous thing anyone in Mostar could do.
Today you cross it in five minutes. But knowing what it was makes those five minutes feel different.
We'll show you the places where the bullet holes are still visible, where buildings have been reconstructed and where they haven't, where the Spanish Square memorial stands, and where the city's two communities still meet and don't meet. We'll tell you what reconciliation looks like here — not as a fairy tale, but as a daily negotiation between people who are trying to share a city with a very recent history.
Mostar Today: Where Things Stand
The bridge is rebuilt. The old town has been restored and is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Tourism has transformed the economy of the old city. In summer, the Kujundžiluk bazaar is crowded from morning to evening.
The ethnic and political division continues to be a fact of life, though not in ways that most tourists experience directly. People shop at the same markets, sit at the same riverside restaurants, attend the same concerts. At the same time, the city's two communities vote for different parties, live in different neighbourhoods, and attend different schools.
The generation that grew up after the war is different from the one that lived through it. There is genuine movement toward normalisation. There is also genuine political gridlock — elected officials in Mostar went without a local election for over a decade due to disputes over the voting structure.
Mostar is not a city that has made peace. It is a city that is making peace — ongoing, imperfect, occasionally interrupted. Walking through it with that understanding changes what you see.
Walk the Frontline With a Guide Who Grew Up Here
History read from a screen is one thing. Standing on the Boulevard, looking at buildings that still carry bullet marks, with someone whose family lived through this — that's something else.
Book the War History Tour